by Rieleit, Peter
Leistungsstarke Lenkdrachen zum Nachbauen. (Efficient Stunt
Kites to Build)
Ravensburger Verlag
29.80 DM
ISBN 3-473- 42286-X
96 pages, lots of color pictures and photos
This is the first book by Peter Rieleit. Peter owns a kite shop in Duesseldorf, Germany, and seems to be well known at least in this area. His book is called "Leistungsstarke Lenkdrachen zum Nachbauen" (Efficient Stunt Kites to Build). The book contains plans for seven stunt kites, three stunt parafoils and three so-called sculpture soft kites. You also find the usual chapters on kite material, working techniques and some words about flying and landing stunt kites. The plans are all accompanied by lots of color pictures and some drawings.
As usual, I cannot say much on the stunt kites in the book. They are all based on the same outline. The only thing that differs is the aspect ratio (width/height) and the size. They all have two spreaders and no-stand offs. The plans are detailed and seem to contain all the important information that is needed to build the kites.
In the second part of the book Peter introduces a new kind of soft stunt kites. The new thing with this sort of parafoil is the profile and the bridle. Peter proposes a self-stabilising profile which results in the fact that you only need one point at the profile where you attach the bridle line. Contrary to earlier parafoils or the paraflex from Wolfgang Schimmelpfennig, Peter's profiles are flat on the top and curved on the lower part of the profile. In addition to the profiles that go from the leading til the trailing edge, Peter uses one or two short (approx. 20cm long) profiles between the long ones to stabilize the most efficient forward part of the profile. The first plan of a soft kite is accompanied by 22 (!) color pictures that show how to cut and sew the profiles together. The only thing that could have been done better in this part is that he uses the same white ripstop for profile, lower and upper panel of the parafoil. It is therefore sometimes very difficult to see on the pictures what he is really doing. The other two plans are mostly a variation of the first one with respect to size.
The last part of the book deals with so-called sculpture soft kites. Peter has built some really exciting soft kites, comparable only to the octopus of Peter Lynn or "Jake the Snake" of Wolfgang Schimmelpfennig. One kite, the super-fly (JPG: 42k), is a big eye catcher in any case just because of its size: four wings (3m x 2m), two on each side of the 15m long tail!! The other two plans describe how to build a banana (30k) and a pteranodon. All sculpture kites are based on the parafoil principle and are planned as stunt kites. Funny thing about the super-fly plan: Peter mentions in the plan that 48m ripstop in different colors are needed for it. As I wanted to build this kite, I recalculated the ripstop and finally ended up with at least 65m (15m tail not included)! Peter also mentions in some introductory sentences to this chapter that only experienced kite builders should try to build these kites, especially as not all dimensions and measures are given in the plan.
I can very much recommend this book. The section about the ordinary stunt kites does not contain very much that is new, but the two chapters that deal with soft kites and sculpture kites make this book an absolute "must have!" The many excellent photos in the book make it also useful for those who do not understand German. And if there are enough requests for an English version, perhaps Peter will produce one?
(review by Bernhard Malle, November 1993)
